Top ten priorities for miscarriage research

This week’s BMJ Open publishes the top ten priorities for miscarriage research, as identified by the Miscarriage Priority-Setting Partnership, a project of the James Lind Alliance.

Miscarriage Association Trustee Barbara Hepworth-Jones* represented the M.A. on the Priority-Setting Partnership steering group, and explains:

There are many unanswered questions about miscarriage – so a key question is “What should researchers (and their funders) be focusing on?”

That question tends to get answered by health professionals, researchers themselves and, sometimes, drug companies. But this time, the James Lind Alliance has worked with clinicians, researchers and people who’ve been through miscarriage, and they’ve worked together to come up with the top ten priorities for miscarriage research.   In summary, these are:

1. Research into preventative treatment
2. Emotional aspects in general
3. Investigations
4. Relevance of pre-existing medical conditions
5. Emotional support as a treatment
6. Importance of lifestyle factors
7. Importance of genetic and chromosomal causes
8. Preconception tests
9. Investigation after different numbers of miscarriage and
10. Male causal factors.

You can read more about those priorities and the process of how they were reached here.

You can read the full  published paper in the BMJ Open here.

* Barbara has personal experience of miscarriage and a professional background in clinical research.